For most customers, the prospect of moving to hosted message service is appealing from a total-cost-of-ownership perspective, but a subset of those customers prioritize the security of their information over any cost savings obtained from a hosted delivery model. Organizations deal with confidential material related to daily business or activities. At the same time, many organizations are considering a switch to hosted services to reduce information technology (IT) costs and burden. Customers want the benefits of hosted application services without compromising security. A subset of customers is unwilling to share any information with a third-party service provider.
In order for those organizations to move to a hosted e-mail service, for example, the organizations want to trust that the service provider was not accessing confidential e-mails of the organization without permission. However, few options, if any, exist in preventing access to the data organization by a third party administrator. Thus, a problem that organizations face is how to protect sensitive data from disclosure to the third party service provider while also obtaining the benefits of reduced IT expenses. To unblock hosted e-mail, for example, a mechanism needs to be provided to secure customer e-mail from the third-party service provider.